Happy Birthday Lord Byron

22nd January, Happy Birthday Lord Byron! Let’s pay homage to one of the leading figures of the Romantic Movement in early 19th century England. The green plaque to Lord Byron’s birth place is attached to the John Lewis store on the south west side of Holles Street, just north of the junction with Oxford Street.

Byron, they say, was obsessed with his weight. He was terrified of becoming fat and said he would rather “not exist” than be large! He was also very keen about his own hair, often offering locks as a memento. Though a new book claims that what Byron often send was only a lock of fur from his pet newfoundland dog Boatswain.

By the way, in the past a lock of his hair was sold at London auctioneer Bonhams for a little fortune. Byron gave the five-inch twist of brown hair, tied in a loop with a green silk thread, to a fellow student, John Fitzgibbon, for whom he had developed an idealized love…